


Take Me Away From All This Death

by MedusaSterling



Category: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Genre: Death, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Ghosts, Half-Vampires (implied), Illnesses, Philosophical Discussion, Reminiscing, Reunions, True Love, heaven (implied), spanish influenza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedusaSterling/pseuds/MedusaSterling
Summary: The year is 1919. The Great War is over, the Spanish Flu is rampaging and Mina Harker is dying. But sometimes, death is not the end.
Relationships: Arthur Holmwood & Mina Harker, Arthur Holmwood & Original Male Character(s), Arthur Holmwood/Lucy Westenra (mentioned), Dracula/Mina Harker, Mina Harker & Lucy Westenra (mentioned), Mina Harker & Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler Warning for the movie, obviously.
> 
> Trigger warnings, brief summary for potential triggers I overlooked in end notes. 
> 
> Disclaimer: If I owned this franchise, I obviously wouldn't write fanfiction about it. This fanfiction however is mine, don't copy without clearing it with me first.

Mina Harker was dying. There were no two ways about it and she knew that. The Spanish Flu was sapping the strength from her with every passing moment.

The year was 1919 and after the Great War, the epidemic had hit England hard. People who had been healthy one day were dead the next. The medical staff was swamped with patients they could do nothing for. Despite her family's urgings Mina had refused hospitalisation. She wanted to die somewhere familiar. So here she was, in her home, the house dear Arthur had provided for her after her falling out with Jonathan. 

Arthur, who had become a dear and cherished friend after their return from the Carpathians, had - surprisingly - been the most accepting of all the involved when it came to her feelings about the Count and the events that transpired since Jonathan's initial departure for Transylvania. She had never asked him why, though maybe she would, now. What harm could it do to tell a dying woman, after all.

She was surrounded by what little family she had left. Her falling out with Jonathan had cost her much. Disavowed by her mother, after her father's passing there were only few people left who cared about her. Arthur was one of them, and though he had never been able to bring himself to marry, he had appeased his family's wish for an heir by adopting a recently deceased cousin's infant son. Said child was another one of those few who she might call family. Lucius, named in honour of dear Lucy, had grown into a bright young man and a dear friend to Grigore. He was the last member of her family, and the only one she shared a blood relation with. Her sweet son took after his father so much it was almost eery.

They were all there now, keeping her company in her last hours, though both Arthur and Lucius kept some distance for their own safety. She didn't hold it against them. They were there, that was what mattered.


	2. Arthur

Lucius and Grigore had excused themselves a short while ago to give their parents time to talk in private. They spent it, one last time, reminiscing. It was now, that Mina finally breached the question she had been asking herself for so long. 

"Why did you not shun me, after everything?" Her voice was weak with illness. Arthur sighed. 

"The way you talk about the Count, what you say about the way you met… He was able to pass for a man in the eyes of all when he so chose. I can't help but wonder, could Lucy have learned that? Could she, with the guidance of one experienced in that existence, have retained a sense of humanity, controlled herself enough to pass for human in public? Was she really a monster or more akin to a misguided child, new to her existence and without guidance. Did she truly have to die? I cannot in good conscience condemn you for your feelings when I harbour such thought. He walked with you as a man, talked with you as a man, loved you as a man. Does that not make him a man? And if he was a man, despite all else, does that not mean Lucy was a woman, a woman I had sworn to love and protect? I loved her, even when she was dead, even when she drank innocent blood, even when I watched Van Helsing and Seward take her head and her heart. And I love her to this day. If I cannot let go of my love, why should I expect different from you?" 

"Do you not resent him, for what he did to Lucy?" Arthur sighed.

"I cannot say, whether Lucy would have lived or died without the Count's actions the night of her death. I cannot say if she would have recovered from the initial attack. All I know is that nothing Van Helsing did improved her condition in any way. I do not know, what truly happened in those fateful weeks. Likely, the Count was the only one who truly knew. But I have known many a man do horrible deeds without any thing supernatural about it. All the Count may or may not have done might make him a terrible man, but no less a man. And I will not condemn anyone for something they might have done. There's something Quincy once said, some proverb from his country, I think: It is better ten witches go free than one innocent soul is condemned. Terribly fitting, isn't it?" He gave a wry smile. "Fortescue wrote something like that once, of course without the witches." Mina smiled at him sadly. 

"Thank you, for being my friend. For loving Lucy, even now. Talk to Lucius about her, every once in a while, won't you? Let him know her." Arthur nodded, tears unshed in his eyes, whether for the memory of Lucy or her own imminent departing didn't matter much to Mina.

"I will. Go peaceful, my dear friend, and know we will miss you. Until we meet again." With those words, Arthur stood and left the room. 


	3. Grigore

Before the door could truly close, Grigore entered. He ignored the chair Arthur had departed in favor of the edge of his mother's bed. She smiled at him, tired eyes glinting in the candle light.

"My darling" her voice started betraying the strain talking took on her. "You are so strong. Like your father." 

Grigore said nothing, listening attentively. His mother rarely ever spoke of his father. He knew little of him but that it was not her husband and that he had been gone before his birth.

As a boy, he had imagined a well-dressed visitor, with dark hair like his own, coming to the door late one evening, proclaiming his eternal love for his mother and sweeping them both away to a castle in a far-away land of wild rivers and deep forests, with mountains and valleys and old stories. The fancies of a child he supposed. 

"He would have loved you so very much." His mother's voice called him back from the recesses of his mind. "Vlad would be so proud of the man you've become." Vlad, that was his father's name then? And she thought he'd be proud of him? "So beautiful, like him. You have his eyes, and his temper." She gave a raspy chuckle.

Mina pulled a small, leather-bound book from her bedside table. "My diary of the year I met him." She pushed it into his hands insistently. "Read it. It will tell you all you want to know." She reluctantly let go of it. "There's a castle, in the Carpathians. It belonged to your father."

Grigore almost laughed out loud. A castle in Romania? Was his mother fantasising? Or had his childhood fancies been more rooted in reality than he used to assume? 

A coughing fit cut of anything else Mina might have said.


	4. Death

Her lungs felt like they were on fire. Compared to this, Mina thought, her almost transition into a vampire was but a mild discomfort. Still she managed a smile for her son. Her darling Grigore. He truly was the splitting-image of her dear prince. 

It had become apparent when he had still been very young, maybe three years old. Oh, Jonathan had been so angry. Had shouted and screamed and called her all sorts of things for "coupling with the devil". It had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back in regards to their marriage. Not that it had been much of one before. After their return from Romania they had not even slept in the same room, let alone bed. He had seemed so understanding in the castle, when she went into the chapel, but maybe he had hoped if she got closure all would go back to how it was before. It hadn't.

_Mina_. Her name wafted through the air like mist, the memory of a long forgotten dream, a whisper in a voice achingly familiar. _My dearest Mina_. It couldn't be, could it?

"Vlad?" her voice was a raspy breath, barely even a whisper, heavy with hesitance and the exertion of illness.

_I am here, my love_. Her smile widened as his form materialised next to her bed on the opposite side of her son.

"My prince" a murmur, hardly audible, but he smiled at her that gentle smile anyway. "I missed you so much." He inclined his head in mutuality.

Mina noticed Grigore's confused expression. "This is your father, my darling." She told him. "Look Vlad, our son."

Her prince regarded them both with warm glances before he leant down to kiss her brow. _Always you surprise me, my heart._

"Have you come to take me, my love?" Mina's voice broke on the last word, her strength waning.

_I promised you eternity once, will you still have me?_ She nodded at his words, an intimate whisper as he leaned close to her ear. A hand raised to her son's cheek, aided by his own most of the way up. A last lingering look at her child, a last smile. As she turned back to Vlad, some air current carried her last words away.

"I'm ready" And her prince leant down and kissed her, as all the strength left her frail body.

Grigore was confused, to say the least. Who was his mother talking to? Was she hallucinating? There was no-one but them in the room.

And yet it was as if there was something just on the edge of his senses, tickling his consciousness with its tantalizing almost-presence.

His mother tried raising her hand, he quickly aided its way to his cheek. A sad smile spread on her face and he knew it was mirrored in his tears. He could read her last words on her lips and it was as if he heard her voice. 

And then, the strangest thing happened. Suddenly there was a man on the other side of the bed, hair dark like his own, kissing her softly. The hand Grigore still held went limp and her eyes dropped close.

The stranger pulled away from his mother's lips and pulled her to him by the hand, or so it seemed. But it was not her body that moved.

Grigore blinked, but the illusion did not dissolve. His mother was on the bed, lifeless, and yet in the stranger's arms as well, her chest rising and falling in gentle sleep. 

He could not find a single word to say as the stranger gave him a small smile, turned away and after a few steps, faded from view with his precious cargo. 

Turning back to the bed, he could still see her body, lifeless and cold. He looked down at the diary in his lap. For a moment all he could do was stare at it. Then Grigore started reading. 

The barest hint of a smile turned his lips upward as he closed the book. He had only skimmed it and would have to return to it in a quiet hour, but he understood now. 

He informed Arthur to call the undertaker before returning to the bed. One last time he let his eyes linger on the face he knew as well as his own before he raised the sheet over her head. 

Madam Mina née Murray, Beloved and Mother, Brilliant and Bright, died on the 1st of May 1919.


	5. Post Scriptum

_**May you find peace in eternity, Riverprincess** , her sarcophagus would read, far far away from the English countryside, in a land of mountains and valleys, wild rivers and deep forests, in a castle at the edge of the world, where the shadows kiss the light and old memories walk the halls at night. Side by side with her prince, united in death finally what life denied._

_And every once in a while, you might find fresh flowers in that crypt, white roses and lilies of red, and the scent of candles and absinthe in the air._

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: Death by Spanish Influenza, Discussions of Divorce, Orphancy, Death (of other characters)
> 
> If I forgot anything, please do tell me so I can expand this list.
> 
> Brief summary: In 1919 a divorced Mina is dying of the Spanish Flu. She has one last philosophical discussion with Arthur Holmwood, the only one of the survivors of the movie she is still in contact with after her divorce from Jonathan, afterwards she talks to her son before the ghost of Dracula comes to take her to Heaven. The Post Scriptum implies Grigore might be immortal.


End file.
